VTA – A Few Moments of Experimentation Can Really Pay Off

Basic Audio Advice — These Are the Fundamentals of Good Sound

Here we discuss what to listen for as you critically adjust your VTA.

While experimenting with the VTA for this record, we found a precise point where it all came together, far beyond whatever expectations we might have had for the sound at the time.

Practically out of nowhere we heard a solid, full-bodied, palpable violin that appeared to be floating between the speakers, an effect that, speaking for myself as a lifelong, obsessive audiophile — I fully appreciated for the magic trick that it is.

The sound of the wood of the instrument became so clear, the harmonic textures so natural, it was quite a shock to hear a good record somehow become an amazing one.

And all it took was a few moments of experimentation.

With the right VTA setting we immediately heard more harmonic detail, achieved, as is often not the case, with no sacrifice in richness.

That’s the clearest sign that your setup is right, or very close to it.
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How Do the Early Pressings of this Mozart Piano Concerto Album Sound?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Mozart Available Now

About fifteen years ago (2010) we played an original pressing of this title that we really liked. It’s the one with the rare cover you see pictured, and might have actually been the first one we had ever found in audiophile playing condition. We had a devil of a time finding more copies, but we were convinced that the early pressings were clearly the best.

More recently we were able to acquire quite a variety of different pressings for an upcoming shootout and were fortunate to be able to include one of the stereo originals for the first time in many years.

We started out with high hopes, but once the early pressing began to play, our hopes were dashed fairly quickly.

Our notes for the original pressing read:

  • Overly rich and weighty
  • Dynamics/life are gone.
  • Side two has one of the most boomy sounding pianos I’ve ever heard.

In other words, it just sounded like an old record, and not a very good one at that. The world is full of them.

Only an old school audio system can hide the faults of a pressing such as this one. The world is full of those too, even though they might comprise all the latest and most expensive components.

Were we wrong years ago? Hard to say. That copy from many years ago is gone.

Three things we always keep in mind when a pressing doesn’t sound the way we remember it did, or think it should:

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Carly Simon – No Secrets

More of the Music of Carly Simon

  • An early Elektra pressing of Carly Simon’s classic 1972 album with seriously good sound from start to finish
  • Warm, sweet, rich, present and full-bodied, with much less strain on the vocals than a lot of the other copies we played
  • “You’re So Vain” was the big hit off of this one, a classic Richard Perry production with huge size and space
  • Five weeks at Number One and 4 1/2 stars on Allmusic, “. . . it wasn’t only Simon’s forthrightness that made the album work; it was also Richard Perry’s simple, elegant pop/rock production, which gave Simon’s music a buoyancy it previously lacked. “
  • If you’re a Carly Simon fan, this title from 1972 is probably her best album, and for non-fans, a good place to start

No Secrets is a bit of a tough nut to crack. Due to the mixture of folky pop songs, big production numbers and potential AM radio hit singles, it has to be cut just right to get every track to sound the way the artists (Carly Simon and studio cats), producer (Richard Perry) and engineers (Robin Geoffrey Cable and Bill Schnee) intended.

Balance is key to getting all the tracks to sound their best. Many copies we played were too dull or too bright, but the tonality here is Right On The Money. The clarity and detail are superb; just listen to Embrace Me, You Child on side two — you can really hear the rosiny texture of the strings as they are bowed.

The best copies such as this one are always transparent, natural and musical. The top end is wonderfully extended, balancing a BIG bottom end with lots of deep, well-defined bass. The drums are punchy and dynamic and the cymbals can sound amazing — just listen to how extended the crashes are on You’re So Vain on side one.

One more note: having your VTA set just right is critical to getting the best out of this album. The loudest vocal parts can easily strain otherwise. Once you get your settings dialed in correctly, a copy like this will have the kind of rich, sweet sound that is obviously the right one for this music.

We’re big fans of Another Passenger, the album she cut in 1976 with Ted Templeman producing. If you like Carly, you should definitely check that one out. (more…)

Art Pepper / One September Afternoon

More of the Music of Art Pepper

  • One September Afternoon returns to the site for the first time in years, here with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sonics throughout this original Galaxy pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are exceptionally full and spacious, with much more energy and dynamics than on all other copies we played
  • Pepper’s saxophone sound is right on the money – breathy and airy with clearly audible leading edge transients
  • “When Art Pepper died at the age of 56, he had attained his goal of becoming the world’s great altoist.” – AMG

This is an excellent recording from 1981, one of the best of the later Art Pepper period during which Art was signed with Galaxy and was devoting his remaining years to playing and recording as much as possible. The album is engineered by Baker Bigsby, as is Art Pepper Today (1978), my personal favorite Art Pepper album and amazing sounding if you can find the right pressing (we’re working on it!).

Like other Bigsby engineered titles, when you get a killer copy the bass is big, solid and it goes deep.

There are a lot of stinkers in the Art Pepper catalog from this era. (Acoustic Sounds released a few of them on 180 gram LPs as a matter of fact. What a waste of vinyl.)

But this album is actually quite good. Art plays in an energetic style, and Stanley Cowell on the piano is excellent as well.

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Otis Redding – Good To Me / Live at the Whisky A Go Go Volume 2

Hot Stamper Pressings of Soul, Blues, R&B, etc. Available Now

This Stax British Import is a Better Records highly recommended recording. If I had to choose one Otis Redding record to keep, this would be the one! As good as his studio albums are, the guy was MAGICAL live.

If you’re an Otis Redding fan, this live album released in 1992 surely belongs in your collection.

The complete list of titles from 1992 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Dexter Gordon – Our Man In Paris

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Saxophone

 

  • Both sides of this vintage RVG-mastered Blue Note pressing earned solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on this Dexter Gordon classic from 1963 – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The sound of the saxophone is so full-bodied and Tubey Magical you won’t believe it – where is that sound today?
  • The top opens up nicely and there is plenty of space in the studio, giving all the players room to breathe
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Gordon is at the very top of his game here. His playing is crisp, tight, and full of playful fury. Powell, who at this stage of his life was almost continually plagued by personal problems, never sounded better than he does in this session.”

The sound here is lively and energetic with plenty of low end weight. These sides have the whomp that you don’t hear on too many Blue Note LPs! The sound of the saxophone is captured beautifully — it’s breathy with clearly audible leading-edge transients.

The bluesy version of “Willow Weep For Me” on side one is wonderful. “Scrapple From The Apple” (also on side one) has a silky top end anchored by deep, well-defined bass.

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Art Pepper – Winter Moon

More of the Music of Art Pepper

  • A Winter Moon like you’ve never heard, with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout this vintage Galaxy pressing
  • The sound here is rich and Tubey Magical, which is the only way this music makes any sense on record
  • You’d be hard-pressed to find a copy that’s this well balanced, big and lively, with wonderful clarity in the mids and highs and Pepper’s sax front and center
  • Rosiny string texture is key to the best pressings – the ones that have the highest-resolution strings with the most sheen tend to do the best in our shootouts
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Pepper sounds quite inspired performing seven strong compositions highlighted by Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Winter Moon,’ ‘When the Sun Comes Out’ and a clarinet feature on ‘Blues in the Night.'”
  • If you’re a fan of Art’s, this is an excellent title from 1981 that belongs in your collection.

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Bill Porter’s Tubey Magical Caribbean Guitar

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Chet Atkins Available Now

This album is a little more lively than some of Chet’s other recordings, which can be criticized for being a little too laid back. For example, try side 2, cut 2, where Chet actually jams.

The last track on side 2 where Chet is joined by a trumpet player is my favorite on the album. That guitar-trumpet combination is pretty magical on that song. And you’ve got to love the kind of sound Bill Porter gets for a trumpet. That’s the kind of sound we audiophiles drool over. I do anyway.

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Stick with Porky on East Side Story

More Hot Stamper Pressings We Only Offer on Import Vinyl Available Now

Porky cut the original British pressings of this Squeeze album, one of countless personal favorites of yours truly. They are records (and cassettes and CDs) I have played hundreds of times and still listen to regularly to this very day, in this case more than forty years after I purchased my first copy. (Good albums age well.)

I would have picked the record out of the bin at my local Tower Records, probably based on the radio play Tempted was getting.

That copy undoubtedly would have been domestic and made from a sub-generation tape, although I’m quite sure I could not have recognized what constituted dubby sound back then. In 1981, what I understood about the importance of different record pressings would have fit comfortably in a thimble.

I had my MoFi’s, and although I hate to admit it, that’s about as far as I had gotten in my quest for superior sounding pressings. You could add Nautilus and a few other Half-Speeds to the list of what pressing I thought were impressive, leaving plenty of room in that thimble unfilled.

Thankfully those bad old days are gone, and the music can now, finally, live and breath on the best of these imports from the UK. Of course they are the only ones we buy these days for our shootouts. The others are what are known around these parts as “mistakes.”

Sometimes the imported pressings are mastered by Porky and sometimes they are not. The ones that are not tend to have a lot of problems, as you can see from our stamper sheet below.

When Porky is not on side one, that side will tend to be hard, lean and bright. Side two of that copy had decent sound, earning a minimal Hot Stamper grade of 1.5+.

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A Question for Classic Records – What Did You Do to My Beloved Hot Rats?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Frank Zappa Available Now

Second question: This pressing of Hot Rats is analog?

You could’ve fooled me.

And somebody’s been messing around with the drums on the new version — a certain Mr. Frank Zappa no doubt. He really did the album a disservice. If you know the album well, and I know it very well, having played it literally hundreds of times, the Classic is positively unlistenable. (The reworked CD of Ruben and the Jets is even worse.)

Bernie’s version for Classic beats a lot of copies out there — the later Reprise pressings are never any good — but it can’t hold a candle to a good one.

What’s wrong with the Classic?

Well, to my ears it just doesn’t sound natural or all that musical. Sure, it’s a nice trick to beef up those drums and give them some real punch, but does it sound right? Not to these ears.

The other quality that the best copies have going for them and the Classic has none of is Tubey Magic. The Classic is clean, and at first that’s a neat trick since the originals tend to be a bit murky and congested.

But it’s clean like a CD is clean, in all the wrong ways. 

The overall sound of the best originals is musical, natural and balanced. The Classic has that third quality — it’s tonally correct, no argument there — but musical and natural? Not really.

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